[Python-Dev] Behaviour of max() and min() with equal keys (original) (raw)

Matthew Woodcraft matthew at woodcraft.me.uk
Tue Sep 7 21:34:17 CEST 2010


In CPython, the builtin max() and min() have the property that if there are items with equal keys, the first item is returned. From a quick look at their source, I think this is true for Jython and IronPython too.

However, this isn't currently a documented guarantee. Could it be made so? (As with the decision to declare sort() stable, it seems likely that by now there's code out there relying on it anyway.)

-M-



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